Tough Road Loss for Eagles at Middle Georgia

Tough Road Loss for Eagles at Middle Georgia
Box Score Box Score
March 23, 2022

David Finney

Macon, GA - The Eagles were coming off a successful weekend of baseball and bringing a five-game win streak into Tuesday's single road game at Middle Georgia State University. The Eagles would get behind early after having a good top of the second and they would have to play catch-up the remainder of the game. The Eagles would come up a little short in this one with the score being 12-9. The bottom of the second inning ended up being the inning that would really make things hard for a comeback against the Knights.

Jordan Hampton would get the start in this game, but he would only get through about an inning and a half of work. He had 3 strikeouts in the game, but he would give up 6 hits and 4 runs all coming in the bottom of the second. Carson Bennink would come in to relieve Hampton in the bottom of the second. After getting the final batter out in the bottom of the second, Bennink would run into some trouble in the third giving up 2 runs and 2 hits. He did have 2 strikeouts before being relieved by Hunter Paulsen. In all, the Eagles would have six pitchers for the game. Daniel Lee, Andrew Herbert, and Parker Miller all saw time on the mound for the Eagles. Miller was the most successful coming in to pitch the last inning where he did not give up a hit or run and struck out two batters.

The bats for the Eagles did have a few impressive innings and put up nine runs in the game, however, it was too much to overcome in the end. The middle of the order did the most damage with Dawson Johns leading the way going 3 for 6 and hitting a three-home run in the top of the second inning scoring Alex Coulter and Jarrett Burney on the play. In the bottom of the fifth, Tucker Zdunich would lead off with a solo home run. The Eagles were able to get two more runs later in the inning when Nick Sanders doubled to left field which scored Patrick Baggett and Dayton Romig. Despite giving up the big second inning and a couple of more runs in the third, the Eagles were only down by two runs at the end of five.

Reinhardt was not able to keep Middle Georgia from scoring after the fifth inning and they put up another 3 runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Those three runs would be too much for the Eagles to overcome the rest of the way. The Eagles kept battling in the final innings and did get another run in the eighth. Zdunich singled to start off the inning and eventually scored on a sac fly by Nick Sanders. This would be their final run of the game. Jarrett Burney did get on in the top of the ninth with a single to center field, however, the next three batters hit fly ball outs to end the game.

The Eagles will try to rebound from this single game loss when they return home this weekend for a series with conference opponent, Bluefield. Friday's game will be at 4 pm and then the doubleheader on Saturday at 1 pm and 4 pm (approximately). The conference games are the most important for the Eagles so look for them to get things back on track on their home turf.